Douglas Carswell's Blog

Look who is out of touch

A tiny, outspoken, vocal minority has been forcing MPs to accept its unrepresentative opinions.

I refer, of course, to the commentariat in Westminster.

Certain media pundits display a glorious lack of self-awareness when they dismiss  as unrepresentative those who refuse to tag along with Westminster group-think.  Pesky party members and insurgent backbenchers might hold views that aren't mainstream at editorial conference meetings.  But there are - still - hundreds of thousands more party members than there are newspaper columnists.  Most MPs - particularly those from marginal seats - have to engage with swing voters every week.  

Perhaps it is the pundits who are out of touch the the rest of the country?   

Here are several examples where Westminster's aristocracy of opinion-formers have turned out to be stonkingly, and embarrassingly, wrong:

• Britain must be in the EU, the pundits keep telling us, and only a few cranky Eurosceptic loons think otherwise. It turns out that almost half the country wants out. Are they all cranks? Perhaps it is the SW1 columnists at got it wrong?
• Cheap credit, they all agreed, would make us rich. Central bankers were lauded for cutting interest rates. It turns out that cheap credit caused a massive, unsustainable boom and bust – followed by chronic malinvestment. So why didn't any SW1 insiders listen to savers?
• Green energy, they all implied, will keep us warm. In reality, poor people in my constituency are being priced out of being able to keep their homes warm so that rich people in London can feel good about saving the planet. Why do the pundits not point this out?

In my book, the End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy, I suggest that the internet will democratise opinion forming. With blogs and twitter, we will no longer be so beholden to the prejudices and preconceptions of a few columnists.

We are starting to see elite opinion formers overthrown. The sooner, the better.

Back to all posts